WINTER 2025 // Canadian Government Executive / 9 FEATURE public sector productivity around inputs and outputs: Still, the federal government is hearing the message. It established a Working Group on Public Sector Productivity in WINTER 2025 to provide recommendations to the President of the Treasury Board by the end of February, 2025. Its broad mandate is this: “The working group will examine the delivery of services to Canadians and the role of technology in helping address barriers to achieve greater efficiencies for Canadians and businesses. The working group will assess options to advance the public service’s ability to be innovative, flexible and efficient in delivering services for Canadians.” [Treasury Board of Canada] The working group’s terms of reference highlight the importance of examining the role of technology, including AI and digital technologies, as well as the lack of appropriate data for effective, timely decision-making. It will look also as government’s own internal processes and how they stifle productivity. This is a useful and timely exercise. Improving public sector productivity should concern all Canadians as well as all public servants. Beyond the cost to taxpayers, there is the broader impact on public trust in government and the people who serve in them. David McLaughlin is Executive Editor, CGE Media. David has over 30 years of senior-level public governance experience at both the federal and provincial government levels. He is a former Clerk of the Executive Council and Cabinet Secretary in Manitoba, deputy minister to the premier in New Brunswick, and chief of staff to the federal finance minister and prime minister of Canada. “The working group will examine the delivery of services to Canadians and the role of technology in helping address barriers to achieve greater efficiencies for Canadians and businesses. The working group will assess options to advance the public service’s ability to be innovative, flexible and efficient in delivering services for Canadians.” — Treasury Board of Canada Source: Public Sector Productivity Review: Fifteen questions, The Productivity Institute, pg. 10, March 2024
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